Burger King locations head to auction

Published 7:00 pm Thursday, August 6, 2009

After months of postponing, the Bennett’s Creek Burger King will finally be up for auction Wednesday.

“I‘ve made the decision that we’re not going to postpone any more,” Suffolk City Treasurer Ron Williams said. “It’s our intent, absent of something drastic, to go forward. We’ve given all the parties ample opportunity to keep that property. They haven’t been able to bring it to fruition.”

The Bennett’s Creek Burger King was one of two restaurants in North Suffolk formerly owned by Azhar Holding Co. The other was located at the intersection of Towne Point Road and College Drive. The two Burger Kings, along with others in Windsor, Franklin, Smithfield and Chesapeake, shut down in October after the owners, Samina and Sarmed Azhar, failed to pay several months’ worth of meals taxes to all five localities.

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The Towne Point location was auctioned off earlier this year. Williams said there was adequate surplus from the sale of the store’s personal property to cover the remaining balance owed by the Azhars, but because they had two separate corporations the city had to sell this equipment to cover remaining balance.

Williams had been postponing the auction of the Bennett’s Creek store at the request of the property owner’s attorney in order to negotiate a possible agreement with Burger King Corporate to open that store as a corporate store.

Williams said time has simply run out and added he does not know of specific buyers that are interested in the property, but restaurateurs will be drawn to an auction like this.

“We certainly hope that in the very near future a deal will come together to reopen the Burger King store either as a corporate store or as some other restaurant,” he said. “We’re certainly optimistic that this will close the matter out. This will be the only remaining loose end. This will pretty well wrap up the Burger King matter.”

The auction is set to take place on 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the premises, which is located at the intersection of Bennett’s Pasture Road and Bridge Road